


show up in shining colors, and then stand there and get hit

by redsquadronblues (clockworkcorvids)



Series: wedgeluke shenanigans [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Established Relationship, Gladiators, Gray Force User(s), Gray Jedi, Gray Jedi Luke Skywalker, M/M, One Shot, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Prompt Fill, Protective Luke Skywalker, Self-Reflection, Song: Spent Gladiator 2, Songfic, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22134619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkcorvids/pseuds/redsquadronblues
Summary: He’s prepared to run out of here if he has to, to slip away into the shadows and never be seen again, but he refuses to leave without Wedge.Correction: he refuses to leave without Wedge, provided that the man is still alive.
Relationships: Wedge Antilles & Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles/Luke Skywalker
Series: wedgeluke shenanigans [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585483
Comments: 12
Kudos: 29





	show up in shining colors, and then stand there and get hit

**Author's Note:**

> title from [spent gladiator 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stq-070yYEE) by the mountain goats

Wedge is the first to go, because of course he is—the man could never stand to wait on the sidelines. First to volunteer for the mission (which Luke thinks is frankly unnecessary, if he’s being honest, but apparently there’s secrets worth finding here if they know where to look) into a brutal gladiator ring, first to get on the ship, first to get  _ off _ the ship. 

First to stand up when the moderator announces that there are  _ Rebel scum in the audience, show yourselves or we’ll weed you out! _

_ Of course _ , is all Luke can think, on loop over and over again (and interspersed with the more-than-occasional expletive), as he watches from his strategically chosen seat in the audience, close enough to the action to jump in if the need arises, but not close enough that he can’t make a run for it.

He hopes he doesn’t have to do  _ either _ of those things, especially not the latter. He’s prepared to run out of here if he has to, to slip away into the shadows and never be seen again, but he refuses to leave without Wedge. 

Correction: he refuses to leave without Wedge, provided that the man is still alive.

Hence why he doesn’t want to have to make a run for it. Unfortunately for him, though, it’s starting to look like he might have to do the next worst thing soon, because Wedge is standing, the crowd is parting around him to let him be seen, he’s spreading his arms wide and giving the entire gladiator ring the same smile Luke has seen a million times before—that smile that says  _ Whatever you think I can’t do, I’m going to do it, and you bet I have a few surprises in store too _ .

“Fine,” he says, voice carrying, offering up the possibility of a fight, “you got me. Resident Rebel scum!”

And then he brings one arm in, pointing at the moderator seated in a platform that rises above the rest of the surrounding crowd. “Are you going to have someone snipe me, or are we going to do this the  _ honorable _ way?”

He emphasizes  _ honorable _ , and Luke can’t see for sure from this distance, but he knows Wedge is flashing that classic smirk: one eyebrow raised, the opposite end of his lips curled slightly upwards, staring his opponents down under his eyelashes. He’s challenging them, and Luke wants to be bothered that he’s putting himself on the line like this, but two things stop him.

One: they both signed up for this mission knowing that this could, and probably  _ would _ , happen. This had been planned with the expectation of Wedge blowing his own cover.

Two: put in Wedge’s shoes, Luke would have done the exact same thing.

The moderator is laughing, and the crowd is cheering—no, they’re yelling. Almost screaming, if Luke unfocuses and refocuses his senses, honing in on things just at the limit of human comprehension. As he sits there, the cold metal of the bleachers he’s seated on seeping through his pants and into his thighs, the crowd’s noise forms into words:  _ Do it _ . 

The hot prairie air is suddenly laced with an uncharacteristic chill as Luke sees Palpatine, the monster of a man all too clear in his mind’s eye. The bleachers, on the other hand, become uncomfortably hot, burning into the skin of his legs and making his palms sweat where they touch the metal.

He jerks his hand up, shaking himself out of his momentary trance, and is immediately hit with a wave of panic—Palpatine isn’t here, he tells himself, Palpatine is  _ dead _ .

Luke begins to swallow his panic, to beat it down into the dust and then beat it some more, but  _ no, wait _ , he shouldn’t do it like that. Suppression is a tactic of the Sith. It’s not for him—and okay,  _ yes _ , he doesn’t have time, the moderator is agreeing and Wedge is being led down to the ring in a frankly disrespectful manner that borders on manhandling—but still, it’s going to get him nowhere. 

He takes in a deep breath, shaky and hopefully not too loud. Suddenly, he is glad for the hood pulled over his head, which is only passable here because of how bright the midday sun is. The star hangs in the sky uncomfortably close to this planet, a massive white orb a dozen times brighter than Luke has gotten used to since leaving Tatooine, and if not for the winds that constantly blow over this part of the planet and his hood to hide the glare, the burning of the sun would be intolerable.

The hood-and-cloak combo also happen to do a wonderful job of concealing the telltale shape of Luke’s lightsaber, as well as the dagger strapped under one arm and the blaster pistol at his waist. And the switchblade in one boot, but that was concealed anyways.

Palpatine’s face and voice still echo in his head, jarring and unsettling, accompanied by a prickling in the lightning-shaped scars that run the length of Luke’s spine and then some, but he clenches and then unclenches his fists and lets all the anger drain out of him.

Part of him has always been impulsive and impatient, attributes the Sith would no doubt prey on if they had ever gotten their hands on him to an extent that mattered, no doubt foster and encourage to the point where it was harmful. He wants to leap up from these bleachers, freeing himself from the heat of his panic and the chill of the metal seats, jump into the arena and take Wedge’s place—or better yet, fight by his side; one Rebel makes a fight and two make a party.

Luke takes in another deep breath, and slowly lets it out, and repeats the whole process, as he watches Wedge. He can’t get up and join. They’d planned this, gone over plans A through E enough times to lose count, and Wedge had given Luke a kiss “for hoping the Force is with us today” before they’d split up. But the pilot disappears, only momentarily, down into the tunnels ( _ not _ catacombs, Luke tells himself) beneath the seats, and Luke wonders if Yoda, off in the Force somewhere, is shaking his head at Luke for being such a slave to his attachments.

Well, for all his wisdom, Yoda can’t do anything about the fact that Luke is head-over-heels in love with Wedge, and if there’s one thing Luke has learned since the fall of the Empire, it’s that the Jedi Order wasn’t right about everything. Although they may have had a point about attachments being dangerous to one’s pursuit of serenity, Luke thinks, noting the way his heart rate spikes as Wedge vanishes from view.

Noting the way his heart speeds up even more when Wedge reappears a few moments later, face in shadows from this distance.

Luke realizes with a start just how much tension he’s holding in his body, and he slowly clenches and unclenches all his muscles from head to toe. His jaw finds itself tightly clenched again, though, and he knows what he has to do. 

He doesn’t bother to make excuses or apologies, or to even make eye contact with the arena-goers he brushes past as he makes his way to the front of the crowd, right up to the railing over the arena. He’s still a good few meters up, too high to interact in any form but yelling and hoping for the best (too high to be splattered with blood when the time comes), but he can see much better now. Wedge is letting himself be all but dragged out into the dusty pit, still holding his head as high as ever, and Luke’s stomach turns as he makes out bloodstains in the sand, not yet swept over from the last round of fights. They haven’t given Wedge a weapon, but it doesn’t seem like they bothered to pat him down either, so. 

Maybe there’s a little bit of luck—a little bit of the  _ Force _ —on their side today.

But Luke can’t go in the arena, and he sure as hell can’t risk blowing his own cover just because he wants to make sure his and Wedge’s meticulous plan is running flawlessly when they both know they have more contingency plans than they need, so he peers over the railing as if he were a particularly curious regular and then stands back, settling his elbows against it. Up here, nobody is sitting, and it is both a blessing and a curse. Mostly a curse to Luke’s spine, but he gets enough exercise to stand it.

What he doesn’t think he can stand is what he’s about to do in a few moments: when Wedge starts fighting, Luke is going to use that distraction to go for the reconnaissance. That was plan D, if Luke is remembering correctly, and he’s not one hundred percent sure how he’s going to signal to Wedge, but he hopes the pilot will notice his absence and not wonder if it’s for the wrong reasons. 

On second thought, maybe they didn’t think this through well enough. 

So Luke waits.

The sun glints, blinding, off the barrel of the blaster pistol Wedge draws from the holster strapped to one thigh, and Luke smiles underneath the hood obscuring his face from everyone on this side of the arena.

Wedge can see him, though, because he knows what to look for, and he looks up at Luke with a grin, gaze casually passing over the crowd, eyes meeting Luke’s for only a split second. Lightning is lighting up every nerve ending in Luke’s body all over again, jolting him awake, jolting him  _ alive _ , but it’s the opposite of pain this time. 

He slips back into the crowd, and if he uses the Force to make sure nobody thinks twice about it as he makes his way past the moderator and into the tunnels, so be it. That’s secondary, and so are the blaster fire and roaring and cheering that are beginning to seep in from outside, echoing on blood-splattered clay walls as Luke melts into the shadows.

He’s going to figure out the secrets in this place, and he’s going to do it as smoothly as he can.

_ What if Wedge gets hurt? _ asks a little voice in Luke’s head, and he brushes it aside. Wedge is probably going to get hurt,  _ Luke _ is probably going to get hurt, and as long as it’s nothing fatal that’s just collateral; a small price to pay for secrets.

When Luke returns from what are, in fact, catacombs, Wedge is still fighting. Bloodied and bruised, breathing hard, eyes wild from where Luke watches at the edge of the tunnels, blaster forgotten in favor of a sword that he must have taken from one of the other fighters, and Luke is hit with a wave of disorienting nausea at the realization that not all of the bodies littering the sand are droids. Most, yes, disposable B1 leftovers from the Clone Wars that will no doubt be carted off to be rebooted or scrapped for parts after this. But not all.

Desperation will do terrible things to one’s morals. 

_ But the war is over _ , Luke wants to say, to himself, to the Force, to anyone and everyone who will listen, but it’s  _ not _ , the hard choices and desperate times are  _ never  _ over.

Luke doesn’t like collateral, so. There’s that. So, kriff this and  _ kriff _ blowing his cover.

Wedge is the first to spot him as he pulls down his hood and steps into the arena.


End file.
